Truth and reconciliation has to mean a lot more of the truth

On the first day ever set aside in this country to formally acknowledge that, indeed, “Every Child Matters,” it didn't seem to matter much that we should find out how many of them are suffering from the greatest plague of our lifetime.

Shouldn't Canada's first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation have taught us a little more about the historic reality that we've also ignored the health and wellness needs of Metis and First Nations people? Shouldn't reconciliation be about pausing and reflecting upon what we are doing so we don't simply repeat the very same old mistakes?

Thursday was also the day that the Saskatchewan Party government reported an eye-popping 601 new cases of COVID-19 in a province of a mere 1,179,844 people — 115 more new cases than were reported in Ontario that's 12½ times our size with a population of 14,826,276.

We know that of those 601 cases, a mere 20 were people 80 years and older and 45 were people 70 years and older. However, there were 127 cases in Saskatchewan children 11 and under, 179 cases in those younger than 20 and 276 cases in Saskatchewan residents under 30.

We know COVID -19 has transformed from a disease of the elderly to the young, but what we don't know is how many of those are First Nations or Metis children — or for that matter, First Nations and Metis adults.

We can safely assume it's a disproportionally high percentage through both anecdotal evidence and history. If little else, COVID-19 has reconfirmed the historic truth that sickness hits the Indigenous community hardest.

Why we had our first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation had much to do with this summer's rediscovery of grave sites at former Indian residential schools where little kids perished from pneumonia, tuberculosis and even the Spanish flu — an estimated one in every 20 children that attended, at some schools.

Exactly how many died and what they died of remains uncertain. Our government wasn't very good at — and had very little interested in — tracking the health of First Nations children or adults a hundred years ago. One wonders if we have really got all that much better.

Today, we all have some passing understanding that life expectancy for First Nations people in Canada is less than it is for other Canadians — the result of comorbidities like obesity and diabetes and substance abuse that can lead to other factors like suicides.

But we can't seem to get our heads around the fact that tackling this humungous problem requires a little more than pulling on an orange shirt one day a year for another photo op.

With all due respect to Premier Scott Moe, while people appreciate government recognition of Truth and Reconciliation, the Saskatchewan Party balked at passage of a simple First Nations youth suicide bill and Moe refused to meet with Tristen Durocher when he walked from La Ronge to the front lawn of the legislature to raise awareness of the issues.

But at least Moe was around Thursday. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau chose to use National Day for Truth and Reconciliation to go to Tofino.

That he would spend this day addressing surf waves rather than clean water on reserves pretty much sums up why so many despise him.

It's not as if the problem isn't before our very eyes ... or better put, on the front lawns of our hospitals.

The best thing you will read from coverage of the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation was a beautifully written piece by the Regina Leader-post's Alec Salloum on 17-yearold Meadow Musqua dancing in front of the Regina General Hospital.

She was doing so to help heal her grandmother inside struggling with COVID -19.

“`You know why you are here,' ” Musqua said her mother told her. “She told me to go dance for the people, go dance for your kokum. She told me I'm a healer and that those things help.”

Meadow Musqua is, undoubtedly, a healer. The problem is, the rest of us aren't — especially our leaders.

Truth and reconciliation has to be more than a one-day-a-year thing.